Informant reveals how he helped catch alleged killer

A confidential informant has revealed to ABC11 how he helped catch a man accused of killing a woman and carrying her bones around in a backpack.

Michael Dorman was arrested last year. He denies killing anyone.

"He said 'I did not kill this woman, I made that up,'" public defender Lawrence Campbell said last July.

But prosecutors allege Dorman killed 31-year-old Lakeia Boxley - who disappeared from her Durham apartment in March 2008.

"He indicated to his friend that he enjoyed killing and had intended to continue doing it," Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline said last year.

Police say Dorman initially buried Boxley right after the alleged murder, but went back later and dug up her bones.

Dorman allegedly wanted help getting rid of the bones, and asked the confidential informant who spoke with ABC11 about it.

"He asked me could I keep a secret," the informant recalled.

The informant claims Dorman told him Boxley was a prostitute, and he killed her because he was offended by her "lack of affection."

"He said, 'Alright, she was just a crack head and I killed her," the informant told ABC11. "So he shot her in the head. Boom! He said that she was moaning, uhh, uhh. I said 'So you didn't kill her, right? So she didn't die, right?' He was like, 'not until I strangled her.'"

He says Dorman bragged that Boxley begged for her life - telling him she'd just had a baby - and once dead, he buried her in the woods not far from his home in Mebane. Later, fearing he'd be caught, he says Dorman dug up the bones and kept them with him in a backpack.

The informant says he hardly knew Dorman when he asked for help getting rid of the bones and he immediately went to the police who convinced him to risk his own life in a sting operation wearing a recording device.

"I said you need to let me take the bones [and] grind them up. He said: 'After you do that, I want the bones back. I want the bag back that the bones are in - everything,'" the informant recalled.

The informant says an undercover detective was with him posing as a relative.

For their next meeting, the informant says investigators put ground-up chicken bones in the bag and then had him coax a confession from Dorman. He says he didn't need much coaxing.

"I got him to confess five times in one sentence that he killed her. I said: 'Tell me what really happened to that girl?' He said: 'I killed her.' I said: 'Huh? I can't hear you?' He said: 'I killed her,'" the informant recalled.

The informant says Dorman didn't even know Lakeia Boxley's name - just that he'd killed her somewhere on Club Boulevard in Durham.

With all that on tape, the informant says police swooped in and arrested Dorman but soon found much more than they'd bargained for.

"Stuff I didn't care to hear about like how he had books in his bedroom on how to build bunkers in the woods so he could keep women for a little while so that he could play with them. He said he wanted to see what was inside of them," the informant said.

Prosecutors backed that statement in court, saying Dorman was plotting to torture and kill more women - some who lived near him. But they say Dorman's not crazy. He's been ruled competent to stand trial.

"I felt like if it wasn't for me, then these people wouldn't of known what happened to their daughter who's been missing for two years. And if it wasn't for me, other people I'm sure would've been murdered," said the informant.

The informant says he doesn't want all the credit for getting Dorman off the streets and that the police he worked with did a great job. But his family wonders why he hasn't heard from police for months and they wonder about the Crimestoppers reward he was promised.

ABC11 spoke to Boxley family who deny Dorman's claims she was a prostitute. As for Michael Dorman, no trial date is set, but he returns to court next month.